New Brunswickers are waking up this morning to a new provincial government and the first female premier in its history. As Premier-elect Susan Holt celebrates her election victory and picks her new Cabinet, it’s left to folks like the team at m5 Public Affairs to dissect the election campaign and analyze what happened.
At m5 Public Affairs, we’re as intrigued by a campaign’s mechanics and the factors that contributed to the victory as the outcome itself. Now that the votes have been counted, our team is putting each campaign “under the scope”. We’re looking at the approach taken by each of the three largest parties and the influence that had on their results.
Post-pandemic reality?
2024 marks New Brunswick’s first post-pandemic election and it’s clear that some aspects of campaigning during the crisis were welcome changes for New Brunswick’s political parties.
For example, pandemic campaigning meant doing away with the traditional campaign bus toting reporters and politicians from town to town with the leader. The only bus to make a return in 2024 was the Progressive Conservative bus, which the PC team used as a headquarters on wheels. Reporters travelled from location to location on their own, deciding for themselves which events were worth their time.
Travelling on the campaign bus gave reporters an inside view of the campaign. They saw the happenings in each town. They built useful relationships with party faithful and the leader that carried over for years after the election. We think the quiet nature of the 2024 campaign is a direct result of the strategic choice to travel without journalists in tow.
The pandemic also changed parties’ approach to getting out the vote. They moved to fewer rallies, more phone calls and more strategic door knocking.
However, when it’s anyone’s election to win, a party’s success with identifying their voters and getting them out to polling stations remains the deciding factor.
Let’s take a look at each of the three major campaigns and see how this truth played out.
Progressive Conservative Campaign
This is the first full-fledged election that Blaine Higgs has conducted since the 2018 campaign. Although six years have passed since his first victory, Higgs continues to promote his reputation as a shrewd fiscal manager with one eye on the budget and the other on reshaping government to make it more efficient and effective.
In 2024, he also had to contend with the cost of living and the difficulties of managing a healthcare system still staggering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Doctors, nurses and other health professionals are burning out and leaving the system early, which is a problem in a province with a growing population whose health workforce is aging.
Higgs chose to capitalize on the anti-Trudeau sentiment that has been brewing across the country since the pandemic and made a bold choice to cut the tax every New Brunswicker loves to hate — the HST.
This platform plank spoke directly to the Higgs brand. It emphasized his preference for continuity, fiscal responsibility, and smaller government. It also allowed him to drive home a populist message that shifted the party further right and made some of its more progressive members uncomfortable.
Liberal Campaign
Holt has been campaigning since the Liberal leadership campaign began in 2022. She’s benefitted from her Opposition role, which allowed her to tour the province when the Legislature was not in session. While Higgs remained in Fredericton on government business, Holt met with the party faithful, mobilized her troops and spent time outside of her hometown in Fredericton.
Holt had her 49 candidates nominated quickly and the Liberal platform was issued early. With this all-important work done, local riding associations could focus on voter contact rather than spending time getting to know the needs of the local populace and nominating a candidate.
Holt did, however, return to the old approach of a new announcement in a different town every day. This was vastly different from the PC party’s strategy and they used it to tie her to the federal Liberals. Ultimately, Holt’s announcements largely centered around improving access to health care and making life for affordable for every day New Brunswickers.
Holt made concerted efforts to distance herself from the federal Liberals, pushing the Team Holt brand as far she could without totally abandoning the party’s colours and logo. This was a strategy we also saw during the Newfoundland and Labrador election campaign that proved successful for Premier Andrew Furey.
Green Campaign
The Greens made a deliberate choice in the 2024 election to position themselves as the “colour of change” and a viable alternative to New Brunswick’s traditional parties for disenfranchised voters fed up with politics as usual.
The Green platform involved many big tickets promises, which showed they were willing to spend more to achieve Green party goals – community driven policy that protects the environment and puts the emphasis on local administration and the decentralization of services to improve access for all. The campaign saw Green commitments to “generational investments” in health care as well as promises for improved intercity transportation and decentralized health care.
By the end of the night, the Green party was down in seats and the popular vote, so it will have some digging to do on what led to that loss and how it can maintain its vote share in the next election.
Results
To his credit, Higgs was gracious in defeat. He contacted Holt early in the evening and congratulated her on winning the trust of the people. “New Brunswick deserves a great future,” he said.
But at the end of the night, it seems rural New Brunswickers kept with their typical voting patterns and the province’s three major cities decided which leader ended up in the big chair.
Fredericton public servants were feeling the pinch from six years of working within Higgs’ management style. They punished Fredericton’s cabinet minister, Jill Green, and finally gave Premier-elect Susan Holt a seat in the town she calls home. Green leader David Coon, who is known for his strong work in the riding, held onto his seat.
Moncton sent a strong message for change, voting out two high-profile Higgs cabinet ministers, Finance Minister Ernie Steeves and Economic Development Minister Greg Turner. The Liberals also nearly swept the Saint John region. They tossed out both Higgs and Attorney General Hugh Flemming and chose Liberals to fill the seats of the Saint John cabinet ministers who resigned in protest over Higgs’ decision-making style.
We’ve been telling our clients since the start of the election that in such a close campaign, the effort to get out the vote would likely rule the day. On CTV News, former Liberal Premier Shawn Graham said the same and pointed to the success of Aaron Kennedy who upset Higgs in Quispamsis by knocking on doors while Higgs crossed the province on the campaign trail. Holt acknowledged this in her victory speech, thanking the thousands of volunteers who made calls and knocked on doors for her party.
In what appeared to be a rather staid election season, it should be no surprise that good old fashioned grunt work is what paved the way for change.